Wingmen
by Ninja-band-aid
Summary: Marauders fic! Poor Peter just can't get a date. So his friends give him a a bit of a helping hand... or not. Pity the rat.


Woooooo, Harry Pottah! Ok, so this was a gift for my childhood best friend's 17th birthday. (Happy one, Gabs!) Why is everything I write a freaking giftfic?

I'm very excited about this one because I'm (OMG, is N_B-a revealing stuff about her life?) working on a WizardRock song for an upcoming guitar recital. I might post lyrics or something. Maybe. I dunno, would you read it if I posted it? Comment and let me know, if you have an opinion!

If you speak Latin (or google translate) you will be let in on a couple funny little jokes in here.

Reviews fill me with

Unimaginable joy

An motivation

† † †

Wingmen

Peter Pettigrew was not a stud. That fact was pretty much obvious. Pathetically obvious. To point it out at all would just be rubbing salt in the dragon bite. He was fat. He was short. His eyes were watery and his chin was weak. His nose had an unfortunate upturned, ratty aspect. His hair was a mousy, limp blonde. He was not exactly somebody you'd want to walk though the halls of Hogwarts alongside, holding hands and making kissy faces. It would be blatant social suicide. Even if he was a member of a rather popular little group of Gryffindors.

The way he looked was bad enough. But the way he looked standing next to his friends? Well…

It was clear why everybody else in the group (save Peter) was popular. They were all, quite frankly, yummy.

First of all, there was Sirius Black. A beefcake if ever there was one. He was athletic, well-made and lithely muscular, with sculpted arms and chest, and the most excellent head of shaggy black hair. He had this way of _looking_ at a lady… it could make you feel as though you were made all of gold, and melting from the inside out. And it felt great.

Then there was Remus Lupin. The smarty pants of the group, indeed, but they were such nice pants. And he filled them out so well. He might have been skinnier than his friends, but there wasn't anything wrong with that, since he was taller, too. And he had this odd smile - wolfish, in a way. Even the cheap clothes were somehow made to look good on him. The naughty academic.

And the leader of the pack: James Potter. Roguish. Popular. Sporty. Basically everything for which the panties could ever possibly hope to drop. His hair was dark and messy, in his face, yet not as untamed as his best friend's locks. This one was wild, but he might be yet tamed.

How was poor portly Peter to stand up to THAT? He felt as if he'd been spontaneously blessed just to be accepted by them at all! Getting girls like they did just seemed too much to ask of The Powers That Be. His friends, however, appeared to disagree.

So it was that one day, hanging around outside beneath the group's favored tree, the subject of Peter's datelessness came around to everybody's shapely lips.

"Mate, this is just getting sad!" balked Sirius, lounging back against the bark, looking cool as ever. "Out of all of us, you're the only one not getting la-"

He was cut off as Remus clapped a hand over his mouth. "Really, Sirius? Must we be so very vulgar?" he asked, rolling his eyes when he glanced up form his textbook (_Beyond the Standard Spells, letters K-Q_. "A spot of lazy day reading," he said).

Sirius scowled and struggled, and when Remus refused to release the grip, the dog licked his hand. Moony recoiled, wrinkling his lip and wiping his hand on his trousers. "Disgusting," he said.

Sirius laughed. "Some canine YOU are!" Remus looked displeased and turned back to his reading as Sirius looked to Peter.

"Seriously though, Pete, people are starting to talk. You've never had a single lady! You're bringing us down as a group!"

"I-is it really that bad?" Peter said quietly, biting his lip.

"YES," both Sirius and James informed him in unison. Peter visibly wilted.

An arm snaked out around his shoulders, hugging him close, in a very manly way, naturally.

"Don't you worry about a thing, though, my friend," Sirius said with a grin, "We're going to get you all fixed."

Peter gulped hard.

† † †

Naturally, Sirius was the first to jump aboard the "set up Peter" ship. He took the pudgy little boy under his wing and brought him up to his… "shag pad".

Peter was note entirely sure what a "shag pad" happened to be, but it seemed to involve and abandoned classroom, a lot of shag rugs, and an old teacher's desk filled with fire whiskey.

"Now whatcha' wanna do," young mister Black said, lounging on a pile of cushions and brushing a hand through his thick, inky locks, "Is start her off real slow-like. Be a gentleman! Just saunter up to her and say-" He stood and cocked a hip out t one side, grinning. "Hey baby. Was your mum a Villia or something? Because you are fine, and I mean that." He flicked his hair back, grinning/. "We could g at it like hippogriffs all night long. Maybe I'll take you out to the Shrieking Shack and we can do some shrieking of our own!"

Peter looked horrified. "The Shrieking Shack?" he said, "Have you REALLY?"

Sirius frowned. "No! No, no, no!" he settled back down to the pillows, "But I could, ya' know. If I wanted to." He added the last, just to make his prowess totally clear.

Peter nodded and wrung his hands. "I'm, um, I'm not entirely sure that I know how to…" he air-quoted, "ah, 'saunter'." He looked awkward.

Sirius proceeded to give him lesions in sauntering.

Peter ended with the conclusion that transfiguring a table into a polo pony was simpler.

Black sent Pettigrew out on a little "test" of his new abilities. The boy was nervous, trembling like a bowl of jell-o and perspiring in buckets.

"You are to walk up to sexiest girl you can find in the hall and use one of my lines," Sirius instructed him, giving him a little shove. "I'll even make it easy! You can ask a Hufflepuff! You'll get some just for being a Gryffindor." He laughed as his friend barely managed to walk out of his own power.

He walked up to a petite brunette wearing black-and-yellow on her scarf, chatting with a group of girls from various houses. Not a hottie, but he was doing well to even go from "cute".

"H-hey," he squeaked.

She ignored him.

"Hey!" he tried a little louder. She turned this time, looking down as if expecting to have been addressed by a mouse. She blinked at him.

"Um, can I help you?" she asked in a soft voice.

"Y-yes!" Peter said, rather pathetically. "I- um, I wanted to ask…" He looked down at his hand. He'd scribbled Sirius' list of "no fail" lines, but the ink was running with his sweaty palms. He gulped.

"A-ah… y-you know when I said 'a-a-accio sexy' I d-d-din't expect it t work!" he stuttered with clear difficulty.

The girl turned all the way around, knitting her brows. "I'm sorry?"

He tried for another. "I m-must have h-had s-s-some Felix Felic-c-cis because I think I'm about to g-get l-l-lucky!"

The frown of confusion turned into ne of anger. "Just who do you think you _are_?" she demanded indignantly.

He thought he was being quite smooth when he replied, "The g-girls call me "Aguam-m-menti." C-cuz e-every time they hear my n-n-name, they get wet."

"_What_ did you say to me?"

In what might not have been the brightest move of his life, Peter gave her another. "L-lets you and m-me disapparate u-up to my d-dormitory!"

† † †

Later that evening, Peter sat in Gryffindor tower, nursing a black eye. His friends gathered around sympathetically.

"You probably ought to see the hospital wing about that," James said with a wince.

"No!" Peter said quickly, looking panicked. Imagine, having to explain getting decked by a Hufflepuff girl….

"Huh, damndest thing," Sirius said, resting his chin in his hand, "They always work for me, mate! You must've been doing something wrong… I can't figure _what_, though…"

"Shut. Up," Peter growled miserably.

Just then, Remus appeared, announcing his presence with the loud SLAM of a stack of books on the coffee table. His three friends looked up at him.

"You've been the dumb following the dumber," Remus informed them, having a seat. Sirius stuck out his tongue at him, but went ignored.

"The way to win fair lady's heart is _not_ through the use of vulgar come-ons," Remus said, giving Padfoot a pointed look, which went ignored. He looked back to Wormtail. "It is through romance. Poetry. Flowers and sweets and the subtle art of courtship."

The three other boys gave him a _look_. It went ignored.

"I will show you how to attract a lady love," promised the werewolf, "and it will involve no violence or crudity whatsoever."

† † †

After a two day boot camp of Shelly, Keats, Wordsworth, candies (the sorts which came with neither collectable cards nor risks of tasting earwax), and flowers, Remus deemed his pupil "ready".

He was sent on a mission to track down a fair young lady, leaving her secretly admiring letters of sweet prose and sweeter rhymes in her honor. It was all going rather well, so Remus upped the ante. Now Peter had to leave her a few well-selected sweets (and if they could be found on the lower shelves, sales bins, or "adventurous tastes" sections of Honeyduke's, they were forbidden).

That went off without a hitch, but there was one more stage before he was permitted to reveal himself to the object of his affections.

"Go down to the herbology Level Five greenhouse," Moony said without looking up from his book (_Transfiguring for Fun and Profit – turn YOUR useless junk into galleons!_) "There will be a row of purple flowerpots on a high shelf on the north side. Clip one of the little green plants from a pot and bring it to her. She will be thrilled and you'll be _in_, my friend."

So Wormtail had done as instructed.

The intention was for him to fetch a rare and beautiful flower, sub induviae occumbo,the smell of which was known for its ability to create feelings of deep affection. From there, it ought to have blossomed into real love between Peter and the young lady. A perfect romance, long overdue.

Unfortunately, a few mistakes were made. Remus ought to have accounted for Peter's horrific sense of direction, because instead of going for the north wall with the purple pots, he went for the west wall with the purple pots.

While the north wall contained lovely flowers, the west wall held a rack of extremely toxic rutilus fervens bumppiez plant, which was known for its unique ability to cause a red, itching, oozing rash all over the afflicted body.

In retrospect, it was a good thing that Peter hadn't revealed his identity previously, because the girl was now seeking legal action against her ex-boyfriend, who she assumed "stalked" and "attacked" her with the "biological weaponry".

† † †

"It's not all bad, mate," Sirius said a few weeks later, as they gathered on a bench in a courtyard, "I mean, that scab sort of looks like a dragon! That's cool, right?"

Peter scratched dino-scab unhappily.

They wrapped up and began to walk off to their next classes, but James pulled Peter aside.

"James, I have to get to potions or-"

"We're playing hooky," James said blithely, striking off with his friend in tow. As they walked, James began a little lecture.

"The guys are going about this all wrong! They're _telling_ you, but they're not _showing_ you. All you really need is to witness an expert at work." He grinned and winked at the boy. "Watch this."

Prongs looked up and broke away from Pettigrew, waving at a bright-haired young witch standing in the shade of a nearby statue.

"OI! EVANS!" he called, rushing over.

Peter hung back, and the two were soon out of earshot. He felt so lucky, so excited. He was getting to watch a real master at work! James would teach him the craft, for sure. He would pull through. And Peter would be on his way to lady-ville in no time at al-

Hm. That was funny. Lily Evans didn't seem to be fawning over James. She wasn't swooning or batting her lashes or- or anything! In fact, she was frowning. No, scowling. Deeply. And now she was stamping her feet and waving her arms. She looked upset. But that didn't make sense! She should be happy and excited…

Though he missed the words, Peter heard the loud SLAP that resounded throughout the space. He also took notice of the bat-bogey hex which she so tenderly applied. James was left flailing while Lily stalked away, arm-in-arm with James' greasy haired nemesis, Severus Snape.

Well. That was unexpected.

Peter shrugged, turned, and headed for potions class. Maybe his romantic life wasn't in quite such a bad state as he had thought.

After all, it could always be worse.


End file.
